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Emily Winkler
A. Frank Wake
English 322-01
23 May 2014
At A Loss of Innocence
How do William Blakes Song of Innocence and Experience relate
to Louisa and Sissy in the first book of Hard Times?
Throughout the novel, Hard Times, it is plain to see
immediately how different Louisa and Sissy are. The way they
both process and think are almost polar opposites, and yet they
seem to develop a clear understanding of each other as the novel
progresses. A main concern or focal point of this novel becomes
clear in the first book of Hard Times. It is incredibly obvious that
the ways in which Louisa and Sissy were trained in intellectual
thinking are remotely different. Both characters show signs of
jealousy towards one another. Sissy believes that the way she
thinks about subjects is wrong because she cannot draw a clear
line to an answer, and Louisa wishes that she could throw out
facts and have thoughts on subjects that are not always black
and white. Because of these differences and the struggles we
witness, it is hard not to focus on the loss of innocence that

Louisa has as a result of her classical training. Louisa and Sissys

characteristics are similarly related to William Blakes Nurses
song in both Songs of Innocence and Experience. In the
following pages I will discuss how Blakes Songs of Innocence and
Experience capture Louisas loss of innocence due to her
upbringing and how Sissys innocence protected her from seeing
the world in black and white.
In William Blakes, Nurses Song, apart of Songs of Innocence,
the poem exposes the little joys that children have as they are just
getting accustom to the world, such as being able to stay out later to
play. The children in this poem are carefree and joyful. They reflect the
embodiment of childhood. Blake uses blissful imagery and exposes the
reader to happiness that is no longer possible to achieve without being
a child. This is a happiness that has not yet been exposed to
experience. For example he writes, When the voices of children are
heard on the green/And laughing is heard on the hill, / My heart is at
rest within my breast/ And everything else is still (Blake 123). An adult
is speaking here; almost as if she wants the children to stay innocent
and childish as long as possible, because once they are exposed to the
world their life will drastically change. The nurse is acting as a mentor
or a protector of innocence. This is important because Louisa never
had anyone protecting her innocence, whereas Sissy in a sense did,

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and here they are in Hard Times with completely different
perspectives.
Now, comparing this poem to Sissy in Hard Times is simple
because the way she views the world is of that of a child. Her thought
process is one that most of us would understand. In the first couple
pages of the novel Sissy is asked a question regarding if she would
carpet a room with representations of flowers. Sissy answers, If you
please, sir, I am very fond of flowers, (9) and to that the man replies,
And is that why you would put tables and chairs upon them, and have
people walking over them with heavy boots? (9) Sissy, of course,
knows that the flowers on the carpet would not really be stepped on
and crushed. She sees the carpet as a nice feature to make a room
more pleasant. Most individuals would not look at flowered carpet and
think of flowers being destroyed under their furniture and feet. Like
most innocent children, Sissy only looks at the joy that carpeted
flowers would bring a room. This relates to the joy that play brings the
children in the Nurses Song because flowered carpet would bring
Sissy the same kind of innocent joy. Children do not need a deep
thought process to understand simple pleasure without facts.
Continuing now, in contrast to viewing Sissy in regards to this
poem we can only feel sympathy for Louisa, for she cannot see the
world through the lenses that Sissy does. Louisas lenses do not have
the ability to view situations that involve more than facts. Louisa

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realizes this quickly after meeting Sissy for she states, You are more
useful to my mother, and more pleasant with her than I can ever beYou are pleasanter to yourself, than I am to my self (47). Unlike the
children in the Nurses Song poem, Louisa does not know of the joy
that children feel when they are playing. She does not know how to
have the fun that children do because that is not fact based. Being
pleasant to herself or to her mother, even if that just involves talking is
not something that Louisa has been programmed to do. She is the
equivalent of a robot because with all the genius that she has been
granted it is not enough for her to be able to live a healthy life in
society with healthy relationships. Louisa is not helpful to her mother
as a daughter because she has replaced her feelings with facts, which
is something that a child with innocence would not be able to do or
would not have done yet.
Moving on, William Blakes poem Nurses Song, in Songs of
Experience, exposes the workings of children that are soon to have
their innocence destroyed and replaced by experience. As the children
play, opposite to the Nurses Song previously discussed, the imagery
of the childrens enjoyment and their life is lacking. The children are
told, Your spring & your day are wasted in play (Blake 128) by the
nurse who also states, The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,/My
face turns green and pale (Blake 128). One would have to assume
that she is jealous of the life the children have because the children

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have not yet seen the cruelty of the world, they are still carefree, which
is something that most adults wish they could still be.
Now, comparing this poem to Louisa in Hard Times it is easy to
see her taking on the role of the jealous nurse because similarly to the
nurse Louisa has lost her innocence due to experience. Louisas
experience consists of her education and her training to
conceptualize the world using facts that she has been taught. This
becomes an issue for Louisa when her father approaches her about Mr.
Bounderbys proposal. Because of Louisas education in facts she does
not understand the concept of love, and therefore does not know how
the respond to this. She is puzzled by, tastes and fancies; aspirations
and affections because she has never had the chance to involve
herself in those feelings, for they are not black and white for most
people. Louisa responds to her father stating, You have been so
careful of me, that I never had a childs heart. You have trained me so
well, that I have never dreamed a childs dream (79). It is apparent
here that Louisa resents how she has been brought up to think. Louisa
never had a childhood like the child in the Nurses Song poems, she
was always the jealous nurse. A decision like marriage would be easier
for her to comprehend, if she had the chance to dream growing up.
In contrasting this poem to Sissy, we see that throughout the
first book she struggles with thinking as someone who has been
brought up to process information factually. Sissy does not have the

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cold mind of the nurse in the Nurses Song because she was given
and still has the ability to dream in innocence. She does not have
experience quite yet, at least not the kind that would take her
innocence away. Sissy is still able to see the world through the rose
lenses that she developed without being trained in black and white
thinking. Of course, when she comes to Mr. Gradgrinds her way of
thinking is constantly challenged and she begins to believe that she is
a stupid girl, when in reality she is quite intelligent. She speaks to
Louisa and states, Mr. and Mrs. MChoakumchild call me up, over and
over again, regularly to make mistakes. I cant help them. They seem
to come naturally to me (47). The way that Sissy thinks is that of
someone who does not see just one clear answer. She has to view all
sides of a situation, and her teachers do not believe in that because
they only see one answer, which is the factual one. Sissy is not nave
like some children, but that does not mean that she is not innocent.
She uses her worldviews in an innocent way because they make sense
to her, even though the aristocracy would never factually take in what
she is saying. Sissy has experience in a different world, so to speak,
but her experience is still innocent because she does not quite
understand her surroundings just yet. She is comparable to the child in
this Nurses Song because it is as if her thoughts are being viewed as
a waste of time, just as the childrens play is.

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In conclusion, the reasoning behind choosing Blakes Song of
Innocence and Experience to relate back to Louisa and Sissy in Hard
Times is because Blakes poems show the opposing characteristics of
the two characters well. There is Louisa who has had her mind
manipulated to think in ways that can only be proven. Then there is
Sissy who has a mind that works in ways that occasionally excludes
facts and uses morals. They both are the epitome of innocence vs.
experience, and the results of both, whether they viewed are negative
or positive. There is a lot to be said of someone who was never truly
given the opportunity to live. It is a fair assumption to say that Louisa
suffered the consequences of being brought up in such a serious
lighting and her life later in the novel reflected that. The life of child
that looses their innocence too early is undoubtedly a tragedy.